#mabelmcbae

here’s the playlist

Into You - Ariana Grande

Make Me Feel - Janelle Monáe

waves - Miguel

Only Girl (In The World) - Rihanna

One Kiss (with Dua Lipa) - Calvin Harris

bad guy - Billie Eilish

Number 1 - Goldfrapp

What’s Your Pleasure? - Jessie Ware

Disco Illusion - Stephen Encinas

PoP! Goes My Heart - Hugh Grant

1. Never Learn feat. The Wrecks - Good Boy Daisy

2. Wingman - Boys World

3. Hurt - Arlo Parks

4. Love Story (Taylor’s Version) - Taylor Swift

5. Custom Made - We the Commas

6. Bonafide feat. Chiiild - Emotional Oranges

7. Morning - Tennis Club

8. Paradise feat. Dermot Kennedy - MEDUZA

9. All Too Well (Taylor Swift cover) - Jake Scott

10. American Mood - Jojo

11. Lasting Lover feat. James Arthur - Sigala

12. WOMAN - Avenue Beat

13. March March - The Chicks

Please picture me in the weeds before i learned civility

Furr - Blitzen Trapper

In a Week - Hozier, Karen Cowley

Wolf - First Aid Kit

Seven - Taylor Swift

Naked as We Came - Iron & Wine

Switzerland - The Last Bison

Woodland - The Paper Kites

Eat You Alive - The Oh Hellos

Next To Me - Sleeping At Last

CAN WE FAAAAAAAAAALL ONE MORE TIIIIIME? STOP THE TAAAAAAPE & REWIIIIIIIIIIND! i’m here for her. always.

slow burn - number one forever

dime store cowgirl

oh what a world

follow your arrow

At first, I thought this was about the song Pony by Ginuwine which is, frankly, a God tier song. So that’s my opinion on THAT even though that wasn’t what you meant 😂

Pony by Orville Peck - I absolutely loooooooove Dead of Night. What a Way to start an album! He’s so smooth and sexy and laying out all his queer cowboy vibes and the FALSETTO when he sings “see the boys as they walk on by.” It sends me. 

…………………………………….why did i just get asked this one by two seperate people ffs

but i’d probably say chris evans

Sorry I wasn’t ignoring this but trying to give it some thought! 

I always struggle with these sort of things bc I’m always worried I’m being a stick in the mud and not accepting the way in which pop culture is moving. Innovation and forecasting is probably not my strong suit. But I’ve gotta say: hate it. I think technology impacting how we actually make music is necessary and good and important to music. The AI episode of switched on pop was so enlightening and challenged me a lot in this regard! I think the music industry impacting how we make music is no bueno. There are plenty of ways in which pop artists have used the structure and limitations of money hungry labels and radio stations, etc. to create timeless music. But I think the particularly competitive field and the homogeny streaming encourages more than ever before is bad for quality. This Craig Jenkins piece I always go on about describes it well. 

My one true love Mark Ronson had good thoughts about it while promoting the album that kind of sum up how I feel: 

“all your songs have to be under three minutes and 15 seconds because if people don’t listen to them all the way to the end they go into this ratio of ‘non-complete heard’, which sends your Spotify rating down” and songwriters are forced to churn out hits at short order.

“Everybody shows off about how quickly they write songs these days, because of the way pop music is made,” he says. “People are like: ‘Yeah man, we wrote that song in 30 minutes,’ and I feel like: ‘Yeah, and it fucking sounds like you wrote it in 30 minutes.’ There are things written in that time that are fucking brilliant – Amy wrote Back to Black in, like, 10 minutes – but a lot of the time I think the quality’s slipped to a point where it’s just OK, where I wouldn’t feel comfortable with doing that with my own music.”